Rey & Kylo - Aboard the Supremacy
by DukeofEminence
Summary: A one-off write-up of The Last Jedi scene aboard the First Order ship, the Supremacy, between Kylo Ren and Rey. But with a twist! This is my way of adding some deeper measure of characterization to the incredibly boring character of Rey, while simultaneously showing how awful Luke's portrayal in TLJ really was.


The last of the—now former—Supreme Leader Snoke's Praetorian guards fell into a dead heap from the quick ignition of the blue Skywalker blade. Kylo Ren tossed aside the fallen crimson warrior's staff that had threatened to render him unconscious just seconds ago, but he never looked away from Rey, who made the assisting throw to help him free himself.

As piercing as Kylo Ren's gaze felt, Rey forcibly looked to her surroundings. Originally, Snoke's throne room walls had been a foreboding red, but during the since-ended battle, it was damaged, shedding the projection, bathing the trashed and corpse-ridden black marble floor with sparks and grey ash. Several small fires burned bright around them from the wreckage of the duel.

A few feet away from the large magnifying lens that Snoke had taunted her with, Rey gasped. Though her heart was already pumping wildly, it skipped a beat as she raced over to it to make sure the hope of the Resistance surviving another day was still alive. To her relief, there were still a few left, but they were less than minutes away from being entirely wiped out if the bombardment from the Supremacy didn't stop.

"The fleet! Order them to stop firing—there's still time to save the fleet!" she exclaimed hastily, pointing out into the black expanse of space where a small explosion flared out of the darkness as another transport was hit on its way to the white marble of a planet in which she was unfamiliar. Chewie had said it was named Crait, but that was about all there was in public knowledge of the planet other than the fact its surface was covered in thick layers of salt and potentially housed an abandoned fort of some kind.

Kylo didn't react to her plea, only walking over to stare at Snoke's bisected body as he clipped the Skywalker lightsaber to his belt. No, she thought to herself. Ben was his name, who he really was. She had been using it as a way of appealing to his humanity as Ben Solo, rather than the masked hunter that had pursued her in the forests of Takodana known as Kylo Ren.

He was breathing hard and fast from the battle as he turned to her.

"It's time to let old things die," he said, taking heavy steps to close the gap between them. "Snoke, Skywalker…the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels—let it all die."

Another few steps and he was just outside an arm's length away. He breathed hard again, as if considering his next words carefully.

"Rey," he continued, lifting up a gloved hand to her, "I want you to join me."

Rey felt the offer before he had voiced it. Ben's presence had taken subtle shifts from the time that she had first boarded the Supremacy. At first, it was completely cold—devoid of any feeling. It had startled her then, but he had been tempering his emotions in the presence of his Stormtroopers. Once they had been in the elevator lift alone, her words had sparked some flickers of life back into him before going stone cold again under the watch of Snoke.

But now…

Now his emotions went unchecked. For the first time since his failed attempt to tear the map to Luke from her mind, his thoughts were bare, but this was different. This time he chose to let her in.

His hand still out to her, he said, "We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she was unable to keep them hidden. Her own emotions began running rampant through her. They were feelings of connection to someone that understood her better than anyone ever had; someone outside of Luke who shared the weight of powers unexplainable at their fingertips—perhaps someone who really could teach her. Her training with Luke had yielded…less than stellar results most times, as it was. At the same time, Rey knew what Ben wanted, and that was the end to this conflict between the First Order and the Resistance. More than that, he wanted it ended in swift fashion—which meant he wouldn't stop the barrage.

Rey finally spoke, struggling not to choke up between her weary breaths. "Ben, please don't do this—please don't go this way."

He wasn't having it. The eyes that were pleading to her showed signs of…distress, desperation.

"No, no, you're still…holding on! Let go!" he said shouting the last words in frustration, his once open hand now clenched shut.

Visibly forcing himself to a calmer demeanor, he straightened.

"Do you want to know the truth about your parents?"—Rey knew Ben saw her shift uncomfortably, and he pressed further— "Or have you always known?"

Of all the places or people Rey had travelled to and seen in the past few days, she would have never guessed that Ben would be the one to share the answer to the questions that burned most deeply inside her. They weren't really questions, though, just smoke and mirrors that she had created to disillusion herself to a grim reality. Maz Kanata had seen through it, perhaps, but Ben was predisposed to cleaning out her baggage in this area.

"You've just hidden it away," he said. "You know the truth."

The silence haunted her until he edged her on.

"Say it," he offered her. A chance to break her own chains. Nodding in his assurance, he repeated himself, waiting for her answer.

"They were nobody," she answered lightly.

The words were bitter, worse than anything she had ever done to herself before because it broke her spirit. All her years spent on Jakku had been lived in the anticipation that somebody in the galaxy would care enough to rescue her from the sandy hell of a planet she had known. She had placed all her hope in the fantasy that those people would be her parents—that they would come back for her. For a time, it seemed plausible, but after so many years, how long was long enough? If there had been any special reason why they had left their own daughter to raise herself on such a decrepit and lifeless planet, surely they would have come back as soon as possible to find her.

Surely…

Kylo nodded once more, sensing her angst. "They were filthy junk traders—sold you off for drinking money."

Rey couldn't help but waver—shoulders slumping from exhaustion, but also of shame. She had built her life on a falsity, and saying it only nailed the final strike to her heart. It was too much to bear.

"They never even left you for the wonders of the greater galaxy, and now they're dead, buried in an unmarked Jakku dessert grave."

She turned away slightly as he continued.

"You have no place in this story. You come from nothing—you're nothing…"

Just when she began to wonder if he was berating her, she felt his next words, and they held more than just a promise—they held a destiny, shaped the way she saw fit.

"But not to me," he finished. "Join me." Once more, Ben held out his hand to her. His face was drenched in the sweat of his exertion, but Rey swore that tears of his own threatened the edge of his eyes.

"Please," he added. This was his most desperate moment, captured inside her own.

Time slowed infinitely. The decision to accept or reject—yes or no. So simple, yet immeasurably complex. Rey's mind attempted to process every conceivable outcome.

To reject: to deny herself the only individual who counted themselves firmly on her side. Well, save one. Finn, she felt, would stand with her in nearly any situation, or so she thought. He had been a true friend to her, the first she could say she had.

But this man…

For a moment, she saw him as she had on Starkiller Base. This was the man who murdered his own father. It took a darkness akin to which she had felt on Ahch-To to slay your own flesh and blood, but there was still an imbalance in Ben. The light and dark fought to control his very will, and it threatened to consume him. Rey knew this would be the only moment that she could offer him a release from that pain she felt inside, and perhaps it would cure him of it.

But what would denying him her companionship do to him? Would it send him into a raging bitterness from which he would never return? Of one thing she was certain: Ben would not come with her to find forgiveness back with the Resistance.

To accept: to begin anew and to find freedom in a galaxy of possibilities—all of which seemed as bright and tantalizing as the stars that shown past the brim of the fire's soft glow. Power, influence, and control—at least partially—of the direction the First Order would take. Perhaps she could shift its intentions and that of Ben's into one that really was for the betterment of the galaxy. But what were the odds, and what would she gain for giving up such a large portion of her current moral compass?

She would be giving up on the Resistance—on Leia, on Han and Chewie, and on what she knew to be the right thing to fight for. But what did she really owe them, especially after only knowing them all for less than a week? She was not subject to their will—hers was her own. She was fond of them, to be sure, but not devoted. She had hoped Luke would be the one to solidify her trust in their cause, and as she lifted her hand, slowly, her conflicted thoughts came back to the former Jedi, and his lightsaber at Ben's side.

This sparked something inside her. They were not pleasant thoughts. They were of rejection and abandonment, of an old man too scared to let the past die, and to fight for a new hope.

 _Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be._

Ben's previously spoken words stopped her hand's rising motion. He was right, more right then she had given him credit for. Only now had she realized what a burden her past was. Her fantastical family reunion, her dreams of a gorgeous green island and of an old sage who inhabited it—Luke…

Her time with Luke, if she was being honest, was awful. Days spent following him around while he did menial chores, and in the meantime the Republic died around him. Nights she slept outside through the rain in the anticipation that he may see how important and urgent her mission was, only to be ignored. Even when he did decide to train her, it was more to prove a point. But it was really just a waste.

She had felt pity for the old Master, at points, but he clearly wasn't the man that the legends spoke of, or at least wasn't anymore. If his actions during the days she was with him said anything, he was an apathetic hermit, all too willing to hide away on an ancient island while his sister dealt with the consequences of his mistakes and refusal to face them.

Rey had been wrong when she said that Ben had failed Luke. No, Luke had failed Ben, and now, he had failed her, too. With this final thought she placed her hand into the one that offered a belonging she had hoped to find in the Resistance—perhaps even as a Jedi—but that future had been dashed by the hypocrisy of one of their own.

Ben lightly squeezed her thin fingers in his bulkier gloved hand, and both of them felt the weight of their broken and troubled pasts fall from them.

It was time to let old things die.


End file.
